The other night I pulled into my apartment parking lot, started to make a turn to back into a parking spot and I heard a very loud pop from the front end. So I stopped to look what it was and realized that when I jumped out of the truck that my steering wheel turned unusually easy. I crawled under the to find my pitman arm ball joint had sheared in half and was about 4 inches from where it should have been. I went upstairs and got Devin (83gmck2500) and we proceeded to kick the tires straight enough to get the truck in the grass out of the way.
Today I had a chance to dig into the truck a bit more to see what had happened. I dropped the sway bar down and took the Cognito brace off of the pitman arm. I used a 2 jaw puller to pull the sheared end of the center link and attempted to take the pitman arm off. There is not enough room to get a puller on the pitman arm due to the cross member that is in the way.
I took a look at the Cognito brace and realized that it was bent on both ends. It seemed that the heim joint tried to pull itself through the brace. It also bent the heim joint as well. Here are some pictures of the process.
I ended up pulling the steering box to get a better approach on getting the pitman arm off... And I'm trying to figure out the reasoning for this to happen.
Today I had a chance to dig into the truck a bit more to see what had happened. I dropped the sway bar down and took the Cognito brace off of the pitman arm. I used a 2 jaw puller to pull the sheared end of the center link and attempted to take the pitman arm off. There is not enough room to get a puller on the pitman arm due to the cross member that is in the way.
I took a look at the Cognito brace and realized that it was bent on both ends. It seemed that the heim joint tried to pull itself through the brace. It also bent the heim joint as well. Here are some pictures of the process.
I ended up pulling the steering box to get a better approach on getting the pitman arm off... And I'm trying to figure out the reasoning for this to happen.
